An Officer and a Gentleman

An Officer and a Gentleman Information

An Officer and a Gentleman is a 1982 American drama film that tells the story of a U.S. Navy aviation officer candidate who comes into conflict with the Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who trains him. It was written by Douglas Day Stewart and directed by Taylor Hackford. It starred Richard Gere, Debra Winger and Louis Gossett, Jr., who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film, and was produced by Lorimar Productions for Paramount Pictures. The film's title uses an old expression from the British Royal Navy and subsequently from the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, as being charged with "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman" (from 1860). An Officer and a Gentleman was commercially released in the U.S. on July 28, 1982.

Plot

Zachary "Zack" Mayo (Richard Gere) has been living in the Philippines with his father Byron (Robert Loggia), an alcoholic U.S. Navy chief boatswain's mate, since early adolescence, after Zack's mother committed suicide. Hoping to put his life on a different path, Zack signs up for the Navy's Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) to become a Navy pilot.

Zack and his fellow AOCs are "welcomed" by their head drill instructor, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley (Louis Gossett, Jr.). Foley makes it clear that the program is designed to eliminate any officer candidates who are not suitable to earn their "prize"; a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Navy and flight training worth over $1,000,000. Foley further warns the male candidates about the young women in the area, who Foley says scout the regiment for officers that they want to marry and will go so far as to feign pregnancy or actually become pregnant in order to trap them. Zack hits it off with fellow candidate Sid Worley (David Keith) and female candidate Casey Seeger (Lisa Eilbacher).

Foley rides Zack mercilessly, believing that he lacks motivation and is not a team player. When Zack's side business of selling pre-shined shoes and belt buckles is discovered, Foley hazes him for an entire weekend in an attempt to make him DOR ("Drop on Request", AOCS term for requesting termination of one's training), but Zack refuses to give in. Foley then tells Zack that he will simply have him thrown out; Zack finally breaks down, telling Foley that he has nowhere else to go and has nothing else in his life. Satisfied that Zack has come to a crucial self-realization, Foley lets up on him.

While Zack and Paula spend the next weekend together, she takes him home to meet and have dinner with her family. After dinner, she shows Zack an old picture of her real father. He was also an AOC who, following his commissioning, left for flight training and simply deserted her mother, refusing to marry her when she became pregnant with Paula.

Later, Zack has a chance to break the record time for negotiating the obstacle course; meanwhile, Seeger will be disqualified if she can't negotiate the 12 foot high wall. which she lacks the upper-body strength to climb easily. Zack abandons his attempt to break the course record in order to coach Seeger over the wall, and she makes it.

Following dinner with Sid and his parents in town, Zack learns that Sid has a long-time girlfriend back home, whom he plans to marry after being commissioned. Meanwhile, Lynette has been dropping hints to Sid that she may be pregnant. During a high-altitude simulation in a pressure chamber, Sid has a sudden anxiety attack. Realizing that he joined up out of a sense of obligation to his family, Sid DORs, and then leaves the base without saying goodbye, so Zack and Paula go out to look for him.

Sid goes to Lynette's house and proposes marriage to her. She turns him down, but not before confessing she wasn't pregnant. She wanted him to graduate in order to fulfill her dream of marrying a Navy pilot, and all but curses him for dropping out. She is later cursed by both Zack and Paula when they come to see her about Sid's whereabouts. Despondent over Lynette's rejection, Sid checks into a motel and commits suicide. Zack decides to DOR himself but Foley won't let him go so close to graduation. He and Zack clash in an unofficial martial arts bout with the platoon looking on. Although Zack dominates for most of the fight (mostly fueled by his anger at Foley, who he believed played a part in Sid's suicide by not stopping him from leaving), Foley manages to win by kicking Zack in the groin. Foley tells him he can quit if he wants to.

Zack does show up for graduation, and is sworn into the Navy with his class. Following naval tradition, he seeks out and receives his first salute from Foley in exchange for a US silver dollar. While tradition calls for the drill instructor to place the coin in his left shirt pocket, Foley places the coin in his right pocket and gives Zack a picture-perfect salute, acknowledging that Zack was a special candidate. Zack tells him he will never forget him and that he never would have made it through without his guidance.

Zack, now Ensign Mayo with orders to flight training, seeks out Paula at the factory where she works. He picks her up and walks out with her in his arms to the applause and cheers of her co-workers, including Lynette.

Production

Locations

The film was shot in late 1981 on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state, at Port Townsend and Fort Worden. The U.S. Navy did not permit filming at NAS Pensacola in western Florida, the actual site of the Aviation Officer Candidate School. Port Townsend stood in for an actual Naval Air Station in the Puget Sound area, NAS Whidbey Island. However, that installation, which is still an operating air station today, was and is a "fleet" base for operational combat aircraft and squadrons under the cognizance of Naval Air Force Pacific, not a Naval Air Training Command installation.

A real motel room, in The Tides Inn located in Port Townsend, was used for the film. Today, there is a plaque outside the room commemorating this (although the room has been extensively refurbished in the interim). Some early scenes of the film were filmed in Bremerton, with ships of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in the background.

The "Dilbert Dunker" scenes were filmed in the swimming pool at what is now Mountain View Elementary School (Mountain View Middle School during filming). According to the director's commentary on the DVD, the dunking machine was constructed specifically for the film and was an exact duplicate of the actual one used by the Navy. As of 2010, Mountain View Elementary is closed and is now home to the Mountain View Commons, which holds the police station, food bank and the YMCA, the latter of which holds the pool.

The filming location of Paula Pokrifiki's house was 1003 Tremont in Port Townsend. As of 2009, the house is shrouded by a large hedge and the front porch has been remodeled. The neighboring homes and landscape look identical to their appearance in the film, including the 'crooked oak tree' across the street from the Pokrifiki home. This oak tree is visible in the scene near the end of the film in which Richard Gere returns to the home to request Paula's help in finding his friend Sid. In the film, the plot has Paula living a ferry ride away from the naval base. In reality, Paula's home is located approximately 8 blocks from Fort Worden.

Lynette Pomeroy's house was located on Mill Road, just west of the main entrance of the Port Townsend Paper Corp. mill. The house no longer exists, but the concrete driveway pad is still visible.

The interior of the USO building at Fort Worden State Park was used for the reception scene near the beginning of the film.

The concrete structure used during the famous Richard Gere line "I got no place else to go!" is the Battery Kinzie located at Fort Worden State Park. The scene was filmed on the southwest corner of the upper level of the battery. The 'obstacle course' was constructed specifically for the film and was located in the grassy areas just south and southeast of Battery Kinzie.

The decompression chamber was one of the only sets constructed for the film and as of 2009, it is still intact in the basement of building number 225 of the Fort Worden State Park. It can be seen through the windows of the building's basement.

Building 204 of Fort Worden State Park was used as the dormitory and its porch was used for the film's closing 'silver dollar' scene.

The blimp hangar used for the famous fight scene between Louis Gossett Jr. and Richard Gere is located at Fort Worden State Park and as of 2009 is still intact, but has been converted into a 1200 seat performing arts center called the McCurdy Pavilion.

The filming location for the exterior of 'TJ's Restaurant' is located at the Point Hudson marina in Port Townsend. The space is now occupied by a company that makes sails. the fictional "TJ's" is an homage to the Trader Jon's bar in Pensacola, Florida, which was a famous Naval Aviator hangout until it closed in November 2003. For years, it was traditional for graduating Aviation Officer Candidate School classes to celebrate their commissioning at "Trader's".

Casting

Originally, country music singer and occasional actor John Denver was signed to play Zack Mayo. But a casting process eventually involved Jeff Bridges, Christopher Reeve, and Richard Gere. Gere eventually beat out all the other actors for the part. John Travolta turned down the role as he did with American Gigolo (another Richard Gere hit).

The role of Gunnery Sergeant Foley was difficult to cast. Jack Nicholson turned down the part, and no one else the producers were interested in was available. Screenwriter Stewart then visited the Pensacola area to do research and found out all of the top drill instructors there were African-American, which inspired them to cast Gossett in the role. Taylor Hackford kept Gossett in separate living quarters from the other actors during production so Gossett could intimidate them more during his scenes as a drill instructor. In addition, Gossett was advised by US Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Buck Welscher and Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey. (Foley's "steers and queers" line would be re-used by Ermey on-screen in Full Metal Jacket.)

Lisa Eilbacher, who played Officer Candidate Casey Seeger, is an avid bodybuilder/fitness buff and said that pretending to be out of shape for the character was the most difficult part about acting in the film.

Props

Richard Gere rides a 750cc T140E Triumph Bonneville introduced halfway in the 1978 selling season. Two T140E Bonnevilles were supplied by Dewey's Cycle Shop in Seattle. One had Receipt no.16787 dated April 8, 1981, as sold to Paramount Pictures. In the United Kingdom, Paramount successfully linked with Triumph Motorcycles (Meriden) Ltd to do a mutual promotion. Triumph's then-chairman, John Rosamond, in his book Save The Triumph Bonneville ! (Veloce 2009), states it was agreed cinemas showing the film would be promoted at their local Triumph dealer and T140E Triumph Bonnevilles supplied by the dealer would be displayed in the cinema's foyers.

Ending

Richard Gere balked at shooting the ending of the film, in which Zack arrives at Paula's factory wearing his naval dress whites and carries her off the factory floor. Gere thought the ending would not work because it was too sentimental. Director Taylor Hackford agreed with Gere until, during a rehearsal, the extras playing the workers began to cheer and cry. When Gere saw the scene later, with the music underneath it ("Up Where We Belong") at the right tempo, he said it gave him chills. Gere is now convinced Hackford made the right decision. Screenwriter Michael Hauge, in his book Writing Screenplays That Sell, echoed this opinion: "I don't believe that those who criticized this Cinderella-style ending were paying very close attention to who exactly is rescuing whom."

Release

Two versions of the film exist. The original, uncensored R-rated cut and an edited for broadcast television cut (which first aired on NBC in 1986) are nearly identical. The main difference is that a majority of the foul language is edited out when the film airs on regular television. However, the group marching song near the beginning of the film and Mayo's solo marching song are not voiceover edits; they are reshoots of those scenes for television. Also, the sex scene between Mayo and Paula is cut in half, and the scene where Mayo finds Sid's body is also edited.

Reaction

Box office

An Officer and a Gentleman was an enormous box office success and went on to become the third highest grossing film of 1982. It grossed $3,304,679 in its opening weekend and $129,795,554 overall at the domestic box office.

Reception

An Officer and a Gentleman was well received by critics and is widely considered one of the best films of 1982. The film holds a very high 94% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. It received rave reviews from critics, most notably from Roger Ebert who gave it four stars. Ebert described An Officer and a Gentleman as "a wonderful movie precisely because it's so willing to deal with matters of the heart...it takes chances, takes the time to know and develop its characters, and by the time this movie's wonderful last scene comes along, we know exactly what's happening, and why, and it makes us very happy."

Rex Reed gave a glowing review where he commented: "This movie will make you feel ten feet tall!" The British film critic Mark Kermode, an admirer of Taylor Hackford observed, "It's a much tougher film than people remember it being; it's not a romantic movie, it's actually a movie about blue-collar, down-trodden people."

The film also received recognition from the American Film Institute. It is ranked number 29 on AFI's 100 Years?100 Passions, a list of America's greatest love stories. An Officer and a Gentleman was also named the 68th most inspiring movie on 100 Years?100 Cheers. The song "Up Where We Belong" was also ranked number 75 on AFI's 100 Years?100 Songs.

Awards

Award wins:

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - Louis Gossett, Jr.

Best Music, Original Song - "Up Where We Belong", Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie (music), Will Jennings (lyrics). Producer Don Simpson complained, "The song is no good. It isn't a hit," and unsuccessfully demanded it be cut from the film. "Up Where We Belong" later became the number one song on the Billboard charts.

BAFTA Film Award for Best Original Song - "Up Where We Belong", Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie (music), Will Jennings (lyrics)

Adaptations

Takarazuka Revue adapted the movie as a musical in 2010 in Japan (Takarazuka Grand Theater; Tokyo Takarazuka Theater). The production was performed by Star Troupe and the cast included Reon Yuzuki as Zack Mayo, Nene Yumesaki as Paula Pokrifki and Kaname Ouki as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley.